Updated 5/24/2010 – I’ve received some comments about expandability and I’ve received a correction about the speed of Dell’s memory, so I’ve updated this post.  You’ll find the corrections / additions below in GREEN.

Since I’ve received a lot of comments from my post on the Dell FlexMem Bridge technology, I thought I would  do an unbiased comparison between Dell’s FlexMem Bridge technology (via the PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server) vs IBM’s MAX5 + HX5 blade server offering.  In summary both offerings provide the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU plus the ability to add “extended memory“ offering value for virtualization, databases and any other workloads that benefit from large amounts of memory.

The Contenders

IBM
IBM’s extended memory solution is a two part solution consisting of the HX5 blade server PLUS the MAX5 memory blade.

• HX5 Blade Server
  I’ve spent considerable time on previous blogs detailing the IBM HX5, so please jump over to those links to dig into the specifics, but at a high level, the HX5 is IBM’s 2 CPU blade server that offers the Intel Xeon 7500 CPU.   The HX5 is a 30mm, ”single wide” blade server therefore you can fit up to 14 in an IBM BladeCenter H blade chassis. 
• MAX5
  The MAX 5 offering from IBM can be thought of as a “memory expansion blade.”  Offering an additional 24 memory DIMM slots, the MAX5 when coupled with the HX5 blade server, provides a total of 40 memory DIMMs.    The MAX5 is a standard “single wide”, 30mm form factor so when used with a single HX5 two IBM BladeCenter H server bays are required in the chassis.

DELL
Dell’s approach to extended memory is a bit different.  Instead of relying on a memory blade, Dell starts with the M910 blade server and allows users to use 2 CPUs plus their FlexMem Bridge to access the memory DIMMs of the 3rd and 4th CPU sockets.  For details on the FlexMem Bridge, check out my previous post.

• PowerEdge 11G M910 Blade Server
  The M910 is a 4 CPU capable blade server with 32 memory DIMMs.  This blade server is a full-height server therefore you can fit 8 servers inside the Dell M1000e blade chassis.

The Face-Off

ROUND 1 – Memory Capacity
When we compare the memory DIMMs available on each, we see that Dell’s offering comes up with 32 DIMMs vs IBM’s 40 DIMMs.  However, IBM’s solution of using the HX5 blade server + the MAX 5 memory expansion has a current maximum memory size is 8Gb whereas Dell offers a max memory size of 16Gb.  While this may change in the future, as of today, Dell has the edge so I have to claim: 

Round 1 Winner:  Dell

ROUND 2 – Memory Performance
As many comments came across on my posting of the Dell FlexMem Bridge technology the other day, several people pointed out that the memory performance is something that needs to be considered when comparing technologies.  Dell’s FlexMem Bridge offering reportedly runs at a maximum memory speed of 833Mhz,  runs at a max of 1066Ghz, but is dependent upon the speed of the processor.  A processor that has a 6.4GT QPI supports memory @ 1066Ghz ; a processor that supports 5.8GT/s QPI supports memory at 978Mhz, and a processor with a QPI speed of 4.8GT runs memory at 800Mhz.  This is a component of Intel’s Xeon 7500 architecture so it should be the same regardless of the server vendor.  Looking at IBM, we see the  HX5 blade server memory runs at a maximum of 978Mhz.    However, when you attach the MAX5 to the HX5 for the additional memory slots, however, the memory runs at speed of 1066Mhz, regardless of the speed of the CPU installed.  While this appears to be black magic, it’s really the results of IBM’s proprietary eXa scaling – something that I’ll cover in detail at a later date.   Although the HX5 blade server memory, when used by itself, does not have the ability to achieve 1066Ghz, this comparison is based on the Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 vs the IBM HX5+MAX5.  With that in mind, the ability to run the expanded memory at 1066Mhz gives IBM the edge in this round.

Round 2 Winner:  IBM

ROUND 3 – Server Density
This one is pretty straight forward.  IBM’s HX5 + MAX5 offering takes up 2 server bays, so in the IBM BladeCenter H, you can only fit 7 systems.  You can only fit 4 BladeCenter H chassis in a 42u rack, therefore you can fit a max of 28  IBM HX5 + MAX5 systems into a rack.

The Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server is a full height server, so you can fit 8 servers into the Dell M1000e chassis.  4 Dell chassis will fit in a 42u rack, so you can get 32 Dell M910′s into a rack.

Round 3 Winner:  Dell

(NEW) ROUND 4 – Expandability
It was mentioned several times in the comments that expandability should have been reviewed as well.  When we look at Dell’s design, we see there two expansion options: run the Dell PowerEdge 11G M910 blade with 2 processors and the FlexMem Bridge, or run them with 4 processors and remove the FlexMem Bridge.

The modular design of the IBM eX5 architecture allows for a user to add memory (MAX5), add processors (2nd HX5) or both (2 x HX5 + 2 x MAX5).  This provide users with a lot of flexibility to choose a design that meets their workload.

Choosing a winner for this round is tough, as there a different ways to look at this:

Maximum CPUs in a server: TIE – both IBM and Dell can scale to 4 CPUs. 
Maximum CPU density in a 42u rack:  Dell wins with 32 x 4 CPU servers vs IBM’s 12.
Maximum Memory in a server: IBM with 640Gb using 2 x HX5 and 2 x MAX5
Max Memory density in a 42u Rack: Dell wins with 16Tb

Round 4 Winner:  TIE
Summary
While the fight was close, with a 2 to 1 win, it is clear the overall winner is Dell.  For this comparison, I tried to keep it focused on the memory aspect of the offerings. 

On a final note, at the time of this writing, the IBM MAX 5 memory expansion has not been released for general availability, while Dell is shipping their M910 blade server. 

There may be other advantages relative to processors that were not considered for this comparison, however I welcome any thoughts or comments you have. 

Cisco recently announced their first blade offering with the Intel Xeon 7500 processor, known as the ”Cisco UCS B440-M1 High-Performance Blade Server.”  This new blade is a full-width blade that offers 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 processors and 32 memory slots, for up to 256GB RAM, as well as 4 hot-swap drive bays.  Since the server is a full-width blade, it will have the capability to handle 2 dual-port mezzanine cards for up to 40 Gbps I/O per blade. 

Each Cisco UCS 5108 Blade Server Chassis can house up to four B440 M1 servers (maximum 160 per Unified Computing System). 

How Does It Compare to the Competition?
Since I like to talk about all of the major blade server vendors, I thought I’d take a look at how the new Cisco B440 M1 compares to IBM and Dell.  (HP has not yet announced their Intel Xeon 7500 offering.)

Processor Offering
Both Cisco and Dell offer models with 2 – 4 Xeon 7500 CPUs as standard.  They each have variations on speeds – Dell has 9 processor speed offerings; Cisco hasn’t released their speeds and IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server will have 5 processor speed offerings initially.  With all 3 vendors’ blades, however, IBM’s blade server is the only one that is designed to scale from 2 CPUs to 4 CPUs by connecting 2 x HX5 blade servers.  Along with this comes their “FlexNode” technology that enables users to have the 4 processor blade system to split back into 2 x 2 processor systems at specific points during the day.  Although not announced, and purely my speculation, IBM’s design also leads to a possible future capability of connecting 4 x 2 processor HX5′s for an 8-way design.  Since each of the vendors offer up to 4 x Xeon 7500′s, I’m going to give the advantage in this category to IBM.  WINNER: IBM

Memory Capacity
Both IBM and Cisco are offering 32 DIMM slots with their blade solutions, however they are not certifying the use of 16GB DIMMs – only 4GB and 8GB DIMMs, therefore their offering only scales to 256GB of RAM.  Dell claims to offers 512GB DIMM capacity on their the PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server, however that is using 16GB DIMMs.  REalistically, I think the M910 would only be used with 8GB DIMMs, so Dell’s design would equal IBM and Cisco’s.  I’m not sure who has the money to buy 16GB DIMMs, but if they do – WINNER: Dell (or a TIE)

Server Density
As previously mentioned, Cisco’s B440-M1 blade server is a “full-width” blade so 4 will fit into a 6U high UCS5100 chassis.  Theoretically, you could fit 7 x UCS5100 blade chassis into a rack, which would equal a total of 28 x B440-M1′s per 42U rack.Overall, Cisco’s new offering is a nice addition to their existing blade portfolio.  While IBM has some interesting innovation in CPU scalability and Dell appears to have the overall advantage from a server density, Cisco leads the management front. 

Dell’s PowerEdge 11G M910 blade server is a “full-height” blade, so 8 will fit into a 10u high M1000e chassis.  This means that 4 x M1000e chassis would fit into a 42u rack, so 32 x Dell PowerEdge M910 blade servers should fit into a 42u rack.

IBM’s BladeCenter HX5 blade server is a single slot blade server, however to make it a 4 processor blade, it would take up 2 server slots.  The BladeCenter H has 14 server slots, so that makes the IBM solution capable of holding 7 x 4 processor HX5 blade servers per chassis.  Since the chassis is a 9u high chassis, you can only fit 4 into a 42u rack, therefore you would be able to fit a total of 28 IBM HX5 (4 processor) servers into a 42u rack.
WINNER: Dell

Management
The final category I’ll look at is the management.  Both Dell and IBM have management controllers built into their chassis, so management of a lot of chassis as described above in the maximum server / rack scenarios could add some additional burden.  Cisco’s design, however, allows for the management to be performed through the UCS 6100 Fabric Interconnect modules.  In fact, up to 40 chassis could be managed by 1 pair of 6100′s.  There are additional features this design offers, but for the sake of this discussion, I’m calling WINNER: Cisco.

Cisco’s UCS B440 M1 is expected to ship in the June time frame.  Pricing is not yet available.  For more information, please visit Cisco’s UCS web site at http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps10921/index.html.

(Updated 4/22/2010 at 2:44 p.m.)
IBM officially announced the HX5 on Tuesday, so I’m going to take the liberty to dig a little deeper in providing details on the blade server. I previously provided a high-level overview of the blade server on this post, so now I want to get a little more technical, courtesy of IBM.  It is my understanding that the “general availability” of this server will be in the mid-June time frame, however that is subject to change without notice.

Block Diagram
Below is the details of the actual block diagram of the HX5.  There’s no secrets here, as they’re using the Intel Xeon 6500 and 7500 chipsets that I blogged about previously.

As previously mentioned, the value that the IBM HX5 blade server brings is scalability.  A user has the ability to buy a single blade server with 2 CPUs and 16 DIMMs, then expand it to 40 DIMMs with a 24 DIMM MAX 5 memory blade.  OR, in the near future, a user could combine 2 x HX5 servers to make a 4 CPU server with 32 DIMMs, or add a MAX5 memory DIMM to each server and have a 4 CPU server with 80 DIMMs. 

The diagrams below provide a more technical view of the the HX5 + MAX5 configs. Note, the “sideplanes” referenced below are actualy the “scale connector“.  As a reminder, this connector will physically connect 2 HX5 servers on the tops of the servers, allowing the internal communications to extend to each others nodes.  The easiest way to think of this is like a Lego .  It will allow a HX5 or a MAX5 to be connected together.  There will be a 2 connector, a 3 connector and a 4 connector offering. 

 (Updated) Since the original posting, IBM released the “eX5 Porfolio Technical Overview: IBM System x3850 X5 and IBM BladeCenter HX5” so I encourage you to go download it and give it a good read.  David’s Redbook team always does a great job answering all the questions you might have about an IBM server inside those documents. 

If there’s something about the IBM BladeCenter HX5 you want to know about, let me know in the comments below and I’ll see what I can do.

Thanks for reading!

As the Intel Nehalem EX processor is a couple of weeks away, I wonder what impact it will have in the blade server market.  I’ve been talking about IBM’s HX5 blade server for several months now, so it is very clear that the blade server vendors will be developing blades that will have some iteration of the Xeon 7500 processor.  In fact, I’ve had several people confirm on Twitter that HP, Dell and even Cisco will be offering a 4 socket blade after Intel officially announces it on March 30.  For today’s post, I wanted to take a look at how the 4 socket blade space will impact the overall capacity of a blade server environment.  NOTE: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from any of these vendors that is not already public.

The Cisco UCS 5108 chassis holds 8 “half-width” B-200 blade servers or 4 “full-width” B-250 blade servers, so when we guess at what design Cisco will use for a 4 socket Intel Xeon 7500 (Nehalem EX) architecture, I have to place my bet on the full-width form factor.  Why?  Simply because there is more real estate.  The Cisco B250 M1 blade server is known for its large memory capacity, however Cisco could sacrifice some of that extra memory space for a 4 socket, “Cisco B350“ blade.  This would provide a bit of an issue for customers wanting to implement a complete rack full of these servers, as it would only allow for a total of 28 servers in a 42U rack (7 chassis x 4 servers per chassis.)

Estimated Cisco B300 with 4 CPUs

On the other hand, Cisco is in a unique position in that their half-width form factor also has extra real estate because they don’t have 2 daughter card slots like their competitors.  Perhaps Cisco would create a half-width blade with 4 CPUs (a B300?)  With a 42U rack, and using a half-width design, you would be able to get a maximum of 56 blade servers (7 chassis x 8 servers per chassis.)

Dell
The 10U M1000e chassis from Dell can currently handle 16 “half-height” blade servers or 8 “full height” blade servers.  I don’t forsee any way that Dell would be able to put 4 CPUs into a half-height blade.  There just isn’t enough room.  To do this, they would have to sacrifice something, like memory slots or a daughter card expansion slot, which just doesn’t seem like it is worth it.  Therefore, I predict that Dell’s 4 socket blade will be a full-height blade server, probably named a PowerEdge M910.  With this assumption, you would be able to get 32 blade servers in a 42u rack (4 chassis x 8 blades.) 

HP
Similar to Dell, HP’s 10U BladeSystem c7000 chassis can currently handle 16 “half-height” blade servers or 8 “full height” blade servers.  I don’t forsee any way that HP would be able to put 4 CPUs into a half-height blade.  There just isn’t enough room.  To do this, they would have to sacrifice something, like memory slots or a daughter card expansion slot, which just doesn’t seem like it is worth it.  Therefore, I predict that HP’s 4 socket blade will be a full-height blade server, probably named a Proliant BL680 G7 (yes, they’ll skip G6.)  With this assumption, you would be able to get 32 blade servers in a 42u rack (4 chassis x 8 blades.) 

IBM
Finally, IBM’s 9U BladeCenter H chassis offers up 14 servers.  IBM has one size server, called a “single wide.”  IBM will also have the ability to combine servers together to form a “double-wide”, which is what is needed for the newly announced IBM BladeCenter HX5.  A double-width blade server reduces the IBM BladeCenter’s capacity to 7 servers per chassis.  This means that you would be able to put 28 x 4 socket IBM HX5 blade servers into a 42u rack (4 chassis x 7 servers each.)

Summary
In a tie for 1st place, at 32 blade servers in a 42u rack, Dell and HP would have the most blade server density based on their existing full-height blade server design.  IBM and Cisco would come in at 3rd place with 28 blade servers in a 42u rack..  However IF Cisco (or HP and Dell for that matter) were able to magically re-design their half-height servers to hold 4 CPUs, then they would be able to take 1st place for blade density with 56 servers. 

Yes, I know that there are slim chances that anyone would fill up a rack with 4 socket servers, however I thought this would be good comparison to make.  What are your thoughts?  Let me know in the comments below.

(UPDATED 11:29 AM EST 3/2/2010)
IBM announced today the BladeCenter® HX5 – their first 4 socket blade since the HS41 blade server. IBM calls the HX5 “a scalable, high-performance blade server with unprecedented compute and memory performance, and flexibility ideal for compute and memory-intensive enterprise workloads.”

The HX5 will have the ability to be coupled with a 2nd HX5 to scale to 4 CPU Sockets, grow beyond the base memory with the MAX5 memory expansion and be offer hardware partition to split a dual node server into 2 x single node servers and back again. I’ll review each of these features in more detail below, but first, let’s look at the basics of the HX5 blade server.

X5 features:

• Up to 2 x Intel Xeon 7500 CPUs per node
• 16 DIMMs per node
• 2 x Solid State Disk (SSD) slots per node
• 1 x CIOv and 1 CFFh daughter card expansion slot per node, providing up to 8 I/O ports per node
• 1 x scale connector per node

CPU Scalability
In the fashion of the eX5 architecture, IBM is enabling the HX5 blade server to grow from 2 CPUs to 4 CPUs (and theoretically more) via connecting the servers through a “scale connector“. This connector will physically connect 2 HX5 servers on the tops of the servers, allowing the internal communications to extend to each others nodes. The easiest way to think of this is like a Lego . It will allow a HX5 or a MAX5 to be connected together. There will be a 2 connector, a 3 connector and a 4 connector offering. This means you could have any number of combinations from 2 x HX5 blade servers to 2 x HX5 blade servers + a MAX5 memory blade.

Memory Scalability
With the addition of a new 24 DIMM memory blade, called the MAX5, IBM is enabling users to grow the base memory from 16 memory DIMMS to 48 40 (16+24) memory DIMMs. The MAX5 will be connected via the scale connector mentioned above, and in fact, when coupled with a 2 node, 4 socket system, could enable the entire system to have 72 80 DIMMS (16 DIMMs per HX5 plus 24 DIMMs per MAX5). Granted, this will be a 4 server wide offering, but this will be a powerful offering for database servers, or even virtualization.

Hardware Partitioning
The final feature, known as FlexNode partitioning is the ability to split up a combined server node into individual server nodes and back again as needed. Performed using IBM Software, this feature will enable a user to automatically take a 2 node HX5 system acting as a single 4 socket system and split it up into 2 x 2 socket systems then revert back to a single 4 socket system once the workload is completed.

For example, during the day, the 4 socket HX5 server is used for as a database server, but at night, the database server is not being used, so the system is partitioned off into 2 x 2 socket physical servers that can each run their own applications.

As I’ve mentioned previously, the pricing and part number info for the IBM BladeCenter HX5 blade server is not expected to show up until the Intel Xeon 7500 processor announcement on March 30, so when that info is released, you can find it here.

For more details, head over to IBM’s
RedBook site.

Let me know your thoughts – leave your comments below.

Okay, I can’t hold back any longer – I have more rumours. The next 45 days is going to be an EXTREMELY busy month with Intel announcing their Westmere EP processor, the predecessor to the Nehalem EP CPU and with the announcement of the Nehalem EX CPU, the predecessor to the Xeon 7400 CPU.  I’ll post more details on these processors in the future, as it becomes available, but for now, I want to talk on some additional rumours that I’m hearing from IBM.  As I’ve mentioned in my previous rumour post: this is purely speculation, I have no definitive information from IBM so this may be false info.  That being said, here we go:

Rumour #1:  As I previously posted, IBM has announced they will have a blade server based on their eX5 architecture  - the next generation of their eX4 architecture found in their IBM System x3850 M2 and x3950M2.  I’ve posted what I think this new blade server will look like (you can see it here) and  I had previously speculated that the server would be called  HS43 – however it appears that IBM may be changing their nomenclature for this class of blade to “HX5“.  I can see this happening – it’s a blend of “HS” and “eX5″.  It is a new class of blade server, so it makes sense.   I like the HX5 blade server name, although if you Google HX5 right now, you’ll get a lot of details about the Sony CyberShot DSC-HX5 digital camera.  (Maybe IBM should re-consider using HS43 instead of HX5 to avoid any lawsuits.)  It also makes it very clear that it is part of their eX5 architecture, so we’ll see if it gets announced that way.

Speaking of announcements…

Rumour #2:  While it is clear that Intel is waiting until March (31, I think) to announce the Nehalem EX and Westmere EP processors, I’m hearing rumours that IBM will be announcing their product offerings around the new Intel processors on March 2, 2010 in Toronto.  It will be interesting to see if this happens so soon (4 weeks away) but when it does, I’ll be sure to give you all the details!

That’s all I can talk about for now as “rumours”.  I have more information on another IBM announcement that I can not talk about, but come back to my site on Feb. 9 and you’ll find out what that new announcement is.